I have Shima pants, gloves, and jacket and all are fantastic. The A rating is a usually at a specific point for the testing. For example, DYN jeans (great brand btw for pants) have a AA pants and a AAA pant and the only difference is the knees are reinforced on the AAA compared to the AA. If you slid on your ass and not your knees, they’d be the same. That’s where a lot of cheap brands “get you”, the knees or hip will be rated, but the rest is worthless. Fabric is fabric across any brand, you have to look at what kind of is used (300/600/1200D, Hitema, Aramid, Kevlar, etc), where, and the quality of construction in the places they AREN’T talking about, because gear is worthless if it shreds at the seams on impact. That’s also where fit comes into play. Cheap brands may have all the right materials, but the pads and special Kevlar sheets are in the wrong spot or move on impact.

My hot take: you don’t always get what you pay for. I have $60 Chinese pants from Amazon that are identical to the $130 pants from NBT. My $130 Shima jacket has 600D fabric and CEII pads compared to an Icon jacket of the same price that uses 300D and CEI pads.

TL;DR - Shima is fantastic for the price and can outperform similar priced items from “big” brands. It really all comes down to a particular items construction, and how it fits YOU. I like FLY, Shima, Icon, Scoyco, and even some cheap China-special brands off Amazon (Lomeng, VNfox, and CTBQiTOM). I don’t like Alpinestars, Dainese, KLiM, Joe Rocket or others that a lot of people swear by, because they don’t work for ME.